The difference between Apple and Google is philosophical. Apple takes a one-size-fits-all approach with one phone, one on-screen keyboard, and one store. Apple offers no widgets, removable batteries, 4G, Notification LED, microSD, NFC, DLNA, turn-by-turn navigation, or Flash. The quickest way to simplify something is to take out features and options. It is like a shoe store with one style shoe, only in size 7.

Android takes the opposite approach. Android phones come in every size and style from 2.5" to 5.3", with physical keyboards and without. There are dozens of basic Android features below still not in iPhones. Not all will be important to you but some will be. Plus you can change settings and customize your new Android almost any way you want. You can set almost anything including having the phone vibrate when you touch a key. The more features and options, the longer it takes to set up initially, but it's worth it.

Android gives you freedom of choice over almost everything. But freedom, by its nature adds complexity. For many, it is a price happily paid.

Choosing a Phone

See the Phone Comparison for specs on many of the top new phones. Over the two or more years you might have this phone, you may spend $2,000+ so get the one you want. Android is evolving so quickly that no phone stays on top for long so get the best you can. Let's start by considering the basic features.

4G - Speed Thrills
Make sure you get 4G (or LTE). Monthly plans are often just as much for slow phones as fast ones. You may have this phone a long time. Don't get one that is already slow. To turn 4G on:
Tap Home > Menu > Settings > Wireless > 4G.
To add a 4G icon to a home screen: Long-press an empty spot on a home screen then tap Shortcuts > Settings > 4G.

Notification LEDThe iPhone 4S still lacks a Notification LED for incoming or missed calls, emails, texts, Facebook or calendar events, etc. Most Androids not only have a Notification LED but the Flashlight Alerts app can also turn the camera LED into a notification LED (tutorial).

LED Displays
The iPhone 4S LCD display is nice but Apple uses LED backlights that are always on with an LCD layer blocking light to produce colors. Organic LED phones like the Galaxy Nexus and Galaxy S II don't need backlights so blacks take almost no power because the LED's are off. Forbes says the iPhone will get an LED display but not this year.

DLNA Mirror Video to TV's
DLNA allows you to see whatever is on your phone on your compatible TV, Blu-ray player, PS3, or Xbox so you can watch HD movies or make presentations right from your phone. iPhone 4S only works with Apple TV.

Full Facebook Sync
Most Androids automatically update with Facebook friends' photos, status, messages, phones, events, birthdays, emails, and notifications. Incoming calls pop-up with updated Facebook profile photos. The free Friendcaster app does even more. Full Facebook-iPhone integration may not be coming any time soon.

Flash
Much of the web including this site rely on Adobe Flash for multimedia but Apple does not have a Flash app on the iPhone. Unfortunately the HTML5 standard to replace Flash is still not finalized. But you will have Flash now.

NFCMany thought that the new iPhone would have Near Field Communication (NFC) for instant payments, keycard, and ID like the Galaxy S II, but it didn't. Android NFC can share a contact, photo, song, application, and video or pair Bluetooth or WiFi devices. See the Google NFC Demo.

Good Vibrations
Set your Android to Vibrate (Haptic Feedback) if your phone must be quiet. Almost all modern phones have this option...except the iPhone. To set your Android to vibrate, tap Home > Menu > Settings > Sound > Silent Mode ON and Vibrate ON. Apps like Executive Assistant lets you customize repeating LED, sounds, and vibration reminders for missed call, emails, texts, calendar, tasks, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Setup Your Phone

Once you have chosen your phone, let's get started having some fun with it. We will find your old features and try out some new ones. You can click the Getting Started button at the top of any page for more help.

GmailGmail is at the heart of Android's Cloud Sync and once you are on Android, Apples limitations are removed. You will get notifications when Gmail is pushed to your phone, full Priority Inbox capabilities, and can forward multiple email accounts to your Gmail. See the Gmail Tips.

Your Contacts and Calendars
You need a Gmail account if you don't already have one to transfer over your calendars, contact names, birthdays, email addresses, and phone numbers. Transfer your iPhone/iPad to Gmail if you haven't already (details):
1. Connect your iPhone/iPad to your PC using the USB cable.
2. Open iTunes on your computer and select your iPhone or iPad and click the iTunes Info tab.
3. Check "Sync Contacts with" then select Google Contacts from the drop-down menu.
4. Tap Configure and enter your Google email address and password.
You can also sync your iPhone to Google directly from your iPhone. Here are more details from Google on syncing Outlook and using the Google Sync program (Help). Also see the Contacts Tips for more.

Sync to the Cloud
Android syncs to the cloud. On your phone tap Menu > Settings > Accounts & Sync > Add account > Google > Contacts, Gmail, Calendar, etc. Then add Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other account syncs as well. Most Androids can sync to all of these accounts automatically. When someone changes their home phone on Facebook, your phone will be updated as well.

Your Photos and Videos
1. Backup the photos and videos to your computer using the USB cable if you haven't already:
- - On a Windows PC, Click My Computer > {your iPhone} > Explore. Drag all of your photos and videos to a new folder on your PC.
- - On a Mac, open Image Capture and set up a new folder as the destination and click Download all.
2. Copy photos and videos from your PC to your Android: Connect your Android to your PC with the USB cable.
- - On your computer, create a folder on your phone called Pictures if it is not already there.
- - Sill using your computer, drag the photos and videos to your phone's Picture folder then disconnect your phone.
3. Reboot the phone: Press Power for 10 seconds > Power Off > Wait 20 seconds > Press Power for 10 seconds.

Battery Life
Android phones are fire-breathing dragons with a big displays, powerful 4G, and a half-dozen other radios. But if you know the Power Management Tricks, you can get a great battery life.

Live Icons
A Live Icon is an icon that updates with information. The iPhone Calendar icon is a good example. With Android there are endless 1x1 widgets that use the space of one icon. For instance, the iPhone Clock Icon is stuck at 10:15 and the Weather Icon is stuck at 73. These are Clock and Weather Live Icons using Make Your Clock Pro.

Toggles
Toggles are simple widgets that lets you change settings without going through menus (and a key reason to Jailbreak an iPhone). But you don't have to break anything with an Android. This Stay Awake Widget can keep your display on whenever your phone is charging. To put your Power Control Widgets on a homescreen, long-press an empty spot, then tap Widgets > Power Settings. Popular free Toggles include the Curvefish Brightness Level, WiFi,Bluetooth, and GPS widgets but there are many others.

WidgetsWidgets show live information on-screen without opening the app such as weather, email, calendars, and almost anything else. Here are some favorites: Tajm - The amazing clock widget in words instead of numbers.Battery Left Widget - Estimates battery time left.Today Widget - Day and date in a 1x1 widget. ($1 Pro with color options)

Endless App Options
Apple has the iTunes company store. The Android Market has endless apps and the same app on Android is often less expensive or even free. But that is just the beginning. Google allows you to have access to competing markets plus MyAppSharer lets you "share" your actual app files with a friend.

Free App of the Day
Here is another app you will never see on an iPhone. The Amazon Appstore offers thousands of apps at discount prices including the "Free App of the Day".

Paid Apps for free
Here is another great market to try. Getjar has a constantly changing assortment of normally paid apps for free including mature content.

Get the Rest of the Apps
Android has apps you won't find on the iPhone. Battery Status puts the real battery percentage in the Notification Bar. The Weather Channel has the temperature. You can now also have the full version of Google Goggles to identify places, products, books, barcodes, and translates text in a photo. Plus you can have the full Google Voice to send texts for free, read voicemail transcripts, and more.

Notifications done right
Apple's new iOS 5 Notifications brings some features of Android's Notifications and the Android Executive Assistant app to iOS 5. As a first attempt, Apple has done well but Executive Assistant offers so much more control over repeating notifications, ringtones, vibrations, etc. Take a look. See the Notification Tips for more.

Don't just backup, share
Apple's iCloud lets iPhone users backup information. But the point of a document is to share it. Dropbox (referral link for 2.25GB for free) lets you backup files for instant use on almost any smartphone or computer, not just Apples. But more importantly, you can share your documents with others.

Let's Work TogetherGoogle Docs let anyone you chose edit files on almost any PC or smartphones including Androids and BlackBerry's as well as iPhones, iPad's, and Macs.

Try before you buy
The Android Market gives you 15 minutes to try out an app on your phone to see if the options and features are right for you. If not, uninstall it for a full refund. Apple still gives no application trials but you have them now!

Theming
Theming is a big reason to Jailbreak an iPhone (and break your warranty). But with apps like ADWLauncher it is easy to make your Android look like an iPhone or anything else. Here is a simple way to change icons and the wallpaper to look like the iPhone 4S in the example screen shot at the top.

Folders
iPhone lets you put up to 12 apps in a folder. The free Android Folder Organizer app takes folders to a whole new level. You can have more than 12 apps in a folder and sort the apps as you like. You can change folder icons and customize shortcut icons and names. The screenshot at the top shows Settings, Newsstand, and Game Center folders. See: Folder Organizer Tutorial.

Visual Voicemail
Most flagship Android phones come with Visual Voicemail that lets you see the caller's photo when you play their message (Oh, that's who that is!). The iPhone still does not. In addition, many Androids will show you their updated Facebook photo and Status when you look at their voicemail. See Visual Voicemail for details. Tap here to see a sample.

No music store limits
You no longer need to buy music from iTunes. With Android you can buy music from Google or you can opt for a number of competitors. Amazon MP3 for instance offers almost every song available, typically for about 30% less than iTunes. The best part is that Amazon Music is not DRM copy protected so songs can be moved to a new phone without issue!

True Hands-free
The iPhone Siri app requires you to push buttons to use it. Vlingo can turn on and operate totally from your voice. Still Siri has included many of Vlingo's other features and was an important step for Apple. How to use Vlingo is below.

More than just an Apple Newsstand
The Apple Newsstand is an iPhone folder for iTunes media subscriptions, typically costing $1 to $5 a month each. With Android, you can have a Newsstand folder for all of your media content. With so many free media apps in Android, you may not see a reason to pay for subscriptions. (How to create folders)

Find all of your friends
Apple Apple's Find my Friends app finds friends with iPhones excluding the 85% of your friends who have other phones. The Latitude feature in Google Maps lets you find friends with all different sorts of phones.

Take control
With your computer, you take for granted that you can see your files. iPhones do not give you this control but Android does. Apps like ASTRO File Manager and AndExplorer let you cut, copy, and paste files as you need.

Predictive Keyboards
You can have a real predictive keyboard now. Keyboards like SwiftKey can be even faster for many users than Swype. SwiftKey users can easily break the world record because SwiftKey learns what you have typed once and then predicts your words.

A Games Center for all of your games
The iPhone Game Center is for iTunes games. With Android you can also have a Game Center folder for all of your games from Android Market, Amazon, Getjar, and dozens of other sources.

MultitaskingWith Android any app can multitask. Android Multitasking automatically saves your work when you go to another app. You can start an email, start a text, open a web page, listen to music, and you can go right back where you left off in the email. Long-press Home to see your Recent Apps.

USB HostUSB Host lets you plug in a memory thumb drive, PS3 Game Controller, mouse, or keyboard into a micro USB Host adapter as shown in these videos at xda-developers. Play a game on your phone with a real controller

More Icons
You can place up to 16 apps per screen on an iPhone but you can move them around any way you like even leaving gaps between icons! Plus the Android Folder Organizer (free) app lets you have 4x6, 5x6, or 5x7 icons per screen, with 20+ apps per folder. Plus you can change icons and nest folders in folders just like a PC.

Apple's Siri has included many of the features of found in the Android app, Vlingo for over a year. Vlingo even pre-dates Google Voice Search. 30 states now have text while driving bans so apps like Vlingo have become increasingly important.

Only you can answer that question. Go hold the different phones. Take time to play with them and try out the features. After a half-hour or longer, what feels right to you?

Android Central's recent Readers Choice survey found that Only 9% Want a Screen Under 4". That makes sense because that is about how many wear Women's Small or Men's XS gloves or smaller.

The chart shows reaching with your right thumb only while holding a typical 4.5" phone. Hopefully this is not while driving or in class because that would be wrong, right?

Notice how the keyboard is positioned right over the easiest area to reach with one hand? But let's break this down a bit. When you are typing on a laptop or PC, what size keyboard do you prefer? 15"? 17"? 20"?

You probably didn't say 3.5". Even a 10" tablet is pretty small to use both hands but you can easily use a two-thumb keyboard like the SwiftKey Tablet X Keyboard.

For those times when you are typing and holding the phone with one hand, take a look at the sizing chart above. Look at how the SwiftKey keyboard is optimized for one-handed typing:

Green is an average Men's Medium glove (size 9)

[HL]Yellow[/HL] is a Men's Small glove (size 8)

Red is a men's XS Extra Small glove (size 8)

Again, no sizing chart can tell you what will feel best to you. That's why phones have screen sizes from 2.5" to 5.3". Plus the current phones are so thin and light that they all feel smaller.

In the end, phones are like shoes. Try them and see what feels right for you. Don't let anyone tell you the one size phone you are to buy.

one handy tip, hold down on the adress bar in your browser to share content via text email facebook and what ever other app it shows up, i had an iphone for a week and i so missed this option, very bad, and well have freedom on all your ringtones, zedge is the best app for that.

This seems like a great resource for new users looking to learn about what customizations or features are available for Android. It does seem obvious that it is also written by someone who has never really used an iPhone before. For example, folders for icons have been available on the iPhone since iOS 3.

one handy tip, hold down on the adress bar in your browser to share content via text email facebook and what ever other app it shows up, i had an iphone for a week and i so missed this option, very bad, and well have freedom on all your ringtones, zedge is the best app for that.

On my galaxy s, I can swipe a contact name one way to call and the other way to text. Clever! Also text input can be changed to 3x4 character screen which, with predictive, makes for super fast text entry. Turn phone to landscape and QWERTY returns. Also android supports avi, wma,mp4 as well as apple video formats. Try and play avi videos on iPhone or ipad. No, u can't. Similar with audio.

I'll agree that the article misstates that iPhone does not have visual voicemail, but they definitely did not pioneer it. I had visual voicemail on my Cingular 8125 (Windows Mobile 5.0) a long, long time ago. I'll give you that Apple improved it a bit...

Also, about the folders, the author isn't saying that it can't be done on the iPhone, he's just saying that on Android you can have as many apps per folder as you want, organize them in various ways, and change the folder icons.

...For example, folders for icons have been available on the iPhone since iOS 3.

I did not have a section on folders but you made me think that this is really important so I added it. Thanks!
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Folders
iPhone lets you put up to 12 apps in a folder. It is a great way to organize apps. The free Android Folder Organizer app takes folders to a whole new level. You can have more than 12 apps in a folder and sort the apps as you like. You can change folder icons and customize shortcut icons and names. The screenshot at the top shows three folders: Settings, Newsstand, and Game Center. Folder Organizer Tutorial.

Useful info for someone new - I'm looking to move over from BlackBerry...

I have worked with iPhones quite a bit and so had enough knowledge to write specifically about how iPhone apps compare to Android. So few are left with BlackBerry that it does not come up very much and I don't know the BlackBerry programs.

The regular Getting Started should walk you through everything. The link is in my signature below.

Perhaps Apple should make a guide on changing from Android? 1. install itunes and let it take over your PC,2. Remember your sign in details, u need it whenever u wanna buy or download free stuff. 3. Get your credit card - you'll need it sooner or later, 4.When going out, don't forget the charger.
One 'downside' of android though is that some phones [e.g. HTC Wildfire] won't access certain apps. I have the Trainline app [gives details of train times in the UK] which works ok on Galaxy s, Tab and HTC desire. This app - and probably others - doesn't work on Wildfire. Annoying.

Yes, there are other downsides to Apple. You have to use iTunes for Apps, etc. Plus Apple's music is not your music. It has DCIM. If you try to move it to a new phone, you may or may not be allowed to because it is not your music. Music you download grom Google Music or Amazon is your own and not encrypted. If you change phones just move the files over. They are your files to use.

I will get that added to the opening post.

I did not mention the iPhone battery issues because them may be able to fix them in software. For now, I will keep that out.

As to the Wildfire, it is amazing the length developers have gone to to get their apps to run on it. Does it hold the record for the lowest def Android? Let alone the memory and CPU. In real life, if you see a wildfire, run.

Plus Apple's music is not your music. It has DCIM. If you try to move it to a new phone, you may or may not be allowed to because it is not your music.

I think that's "DRM" (Digital Rights Management). Also, iTunes has recently removed all DRM. That's why most of the songs went from $.99 to $1.29. I know this because I came from iPhone and had to "upgrade" all my older DRM music to iTunes Plus (their way of getting another 30 cents out of you for songs you already paid for) to be able to use it on my Inspire.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending iTunes/Apple. Just want everyone to have the facts.

I need to be able to reach in my pocket and turn off the sound. There are times when you just can't take the phone out and futz with it. I loved that I could flip a switch on the iphone in my pocket and feel the confirmatory vibration. THERE HAS GOT to be an app that allows me to do that with one of the hard buttons on the galaxy...but I can't find it. They are all widgets or apps that I have to unlock the phone for. PLEASE someone develop this or tell me where there is one.

One other pet peeve. The "home" button is not a real button and it isn't lit up... so I can't see it or feel it. I miss that!

Five options:
1. Slide the lockscreen notification to open the app and unlock the phone
2. Hold down the Volumn down button
3. Put SilentMode OnOff toggle on the lockscreen with Executive Assistant or WidgetLocker Lockscreen
4. Use Light Flow to automatically turn off sounds during times you can't have sounds.
5. Use Tasker to automatically turn off sounds at certain times or when you are at a location such as work or school.

Five options:
1. Slide the lockscreen notification to open the app and unlock the phone
not sure how to do this in my pocket
2. Hold down the Volumn down button
have to unlock phone first
3. Put SilentMode OnOff toggle on the lockscreen with Executive Assistant or WidgetLocker Lockscreen
I like widget locker but again, can't do in my pocket... and it doesn't have built in security.. I have to then do the regular lock screen
4. Use Light Flow to automatically turn off sounds during times you can't have sounds.
looked at this.. not sure how it helps me...
5. Use Tasker to automatically turn off sounds at certain times or when you are at a location such as work or school.

This is a possibility... will try this

Thanks.. I love the skyrocket... this is just one important feature that I wish it had.